


Dermodysthesia

by MiaGhost



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Background Relationships, Best Friends, But frick her lmao she can go to hell, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Found Family, Gay Richie Tozier, Informal Prose, Informal Story-Telling Style, Irregular Passage of Time, M/M, Mentioned Sonia Kaspbrak, Pining, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Secret Crush, Something a little different from my other stuff, Sonia Kaspbrak Being Terrible, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Stream of Consciousness, Supportive Losers Club (IT), Swearing, The Losers Club Are Good Friends (IT), The Losers Club Escape Derry, The Losers Club Love Each Other (IT), a life story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:00:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24456322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiaGhost/pseuds/MiaGhost
Summary: Richie Tozier doesn't know whether to hope that his soulmate will be the best friend he's already in love with. He wants Eddie around forever, he loves him hard enough it hurts. But Derry is dangerous, and if they're soulmates and Bowers finds out?Life would be infinitely worse than it currently is.But then Eddie's not his soulmate and Richie is devastated. It gets even worse when the soulmate he does have wants nothing to do with him. The Turtle owed them, for what they did in the sewers. Is a little bit of happiness too much to ask for?Fucking Turtle.But he still has his friends, and they have Derry to escape together and Eddie says that Life Must Go On.So this is his life.[This was a self-challenge to write a No Dialogue Fic and it's turned out very informal and casual, but I kind of like how it reads like a spoken story, almost. I may, in the future, expand this into a larger and dialogue-laden piece. But for now, enjoy this messy little taste of Mia Finds That Writing No Dialogue Is Weird.]
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak & Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 42





	Dermodysthesia

~.~

It can be hard to keep your head up, in Derry. The bullies, the judgement slung at anyone who's different, the way that even once the monster is dead the adults still don't seem to see the shit that goes down. And school, of course. School is crappy. And turning sixteen? That's fucking crappy too. It's not supposed to be, of course. It's supposed to be this great thing, the point where you can finally start communicating with your soulmate. Say hey, draw em pretty doodles to make em smile. Or draw a dick on your friend's face to out them and their partner.

Richie Tozier has seen a couple of those moves go down in Derry High already, and with his birthday _finally_ cresting the horizon, he's got his fair share of nerves and excitement going on. And hope, of course. Because there's that rather uncrushable part of him that hopes Eddie is the one whose skin will show his marks. They could write each other notes at night, once Eddie's sixteen too. Eddie could tell him when his mom was being a bitch, and Richie could tell him bad jokes like he would if he was really there, revelling in the secret of it between just the two of them, and they'd probably keep forgetting how annoying it was to wash all the writing off in the morning.

The first mark is the only one that stays if you try to wash it off. It's special. It'll sink deep into your skin when you put it there if your soulmate is already sixteen, or appear one day when put there by them when _they_ turn sixteen, and it'll stay until you share your first soulmate kiss. Even if you don't get your mark right away on your birthday, that's okay too. It's rare, but some people don't even get their first mark until they're eighteen and starting out on their lives away from home. Everybody has them by twenty-one. Nobody wants to have to wait that long, of course. If anything, Richie thinks it's kind of cruel on the part of the universe, to make some people wait all the way till then to realise their soulmate must have died before they could ever communicate with them.

They always change the subject if that comes up when they cover soulmates in school. Richie's tried to get more information, but it only gets him in trouble with whatever teacher is giving the lesson. The adults would much rather have them thinking about marks, and their soul-journey and the lessons their soulmates could teach them. And it works, really. Those are much more interesting avenues of thought. It always works at distracting the class, and Richie has to fall quiet once more because everybody wants him to. Richie already has a bunch of ideas for his first mark. Most people these days pick a symbol they think will show who they are, or their favourite quote, or music lyrics or something. He's pretty fucking excited about his.

He's terrified too, of course. He's scared it won't be Eddie, that he'll be in love with his best friend and unable to do anything about it - though it's not like he can do anything about it _now_ , can he? - but he's scared too that it will be. Because all it would take to bring the wrath of Derry down upon them would be for Bowers' next penning target to be one of them. He dreads someone being a jackass in the halls, the way he's seen people be. He's terrified that someone will slash a marker across his cheek and it'll show on Eddie's face like a beacon and that'll be it, whatever semblance of peace they've tried to find in the past four years will be shattered.

Because although nobody can choose their soulmate, Derry doesn't _care_. If you're a boy with a soulmate who's also a boy, it's only further evidence that you don't belong. That you're different and dirty and fair game for anyone who wants to hurt you. Richie already knows that what they say about him in the school halls is true. He's known it since that fateful summer. All it took was a space monster to let him see inside himself. It's difficult sometimes to remind himself that the slurs aren't real, though. That they don't mean anything. That he isn't dirty, he's just the same as anyone else. It's easier to pretend that when he's not surrounded but it at school. By the nasty rumours that few ever say to his face. Hell, for all Richie knows, Bowers just sees the newly found soulmates as fresh targets to add to his list.

That kid he calls queer turning out to actually _be_ queer? Fuck, he'll probably rub his hands together and laugh about having someone else to call a faggot when he hunts them down after school. Someone else to corner in the toilets, someone else's head to dunk into the grimy toilet bowl.

So, yeah. Richie's fucking terrified that his stupid gay heart is gonna get his best friend into even more trouble than he already is. Bowers calls them both fags often enough that Richie knows without a doubt he doesn't want to be the cause of that pain doubling.

But… he also really hopes it's Eddie he gets to spend his life with.

He tries not to hope too badly, as January turns into February. The awkwardness of Valentine's Day feels heavy and weighted when he thinks about the possibility of having someone to shower with dopey pink hearts next time the holiday comes around. And then just like that, February bleeds into March and Richie's level of nervous excitement is almost too much to bear. It lives and breathes in his skin all day, every day. It makes him restless and itchy. It makes every feeling, every sensation, every brush of sping air on his face feel _more_. Like like is full of as much anticipation as he is. So when midnight strikes on March 7th and Richie puts the pen against his skin, he doesn't consider that he might be stuck with that mark forever. Because he's gonna find his soulmate, he knows he is.

He doesn't know how to feel when it stays. He only truly realises then how fervently he's been praying it wouldn't. Eddie's birthday isn't for months yet. He hasn't turned sixteen. He should have expected it, really. Nothing has ever gone his way. But it still hurts more than he can bear, spilling over in soundless sobs as he clutches his arm in the other hand so tightly it breaks the skin. The mark stays, even when he scrubs the skin hard enough to sting. The sting is the only thing keeping him from floating away, it feels like. He can't believe he managed to trick himself so profoundly. He can't believe he actually thought he had a handle on that dreadful, piercing hope.

It feels like his life just ended, before he even gets to say goodbye.

He should be happy he has confirmation that his soulmate is out there. But all he can think is how Eddie Kaspbrak isn't the person his marks will reach. Eddie won't be the person he shares silent late-night conversations with, it won't be Eddie who makes his first mark fade with just his kiss. It feels inexplicably cruel. He deserves happiness, after everything he's been through. The Turtle owed him this, and it screwed him over.

Richie cries long into the morning and almost doesn't force himself out of bed for school. He feels sick and woozy when he leaves the sanctuary of his blankets. He stalls, staring at the empty skin on his arm as he brushes his teeth. He doesn't want to touch it. He doesn't want to put any more ink on his skin. He doesn't want to be the first one to reach out. His doodle is right on his wrist, clear as day. There's no way his soulmate could miss it. Are they awake by now?

He. His soulmate would be a he. Is he awake, right in this moment? Has he seen the mark? What does he think of it, does he hate it? Will it make him laugh? Richie is nervous. So nervous it wants to paralyse him and make him stand in the bathroom forever, in his old pyjamas with his toothbrush stuck in his mouth and foam dripping down his chin.

He forces himself to spit and rinse. The best way Richie has ever found to deal with nerves is to throw himself headfirst into them. To leap, hard and high as he can, and hope the landing is soft. He grabs the marker from his desk. It's red and yelling but it does the job as he scribbles on his skin. When he's done he throws the pen back onto the desk. It rolls as though alarmed, whirling in a half-circle from the force, but Richie doesn't see it. He's staring at the writing on his skin and feeling that unsettling feeling that he can't name.

It's not really hope. It's more like dread, but with something else. Something that's only _like_ hope, because it's not real hope. Real hope was what he used to have when he thought about it being Eddie who would get his soul mark. He still hopes ridiculously that by some miracle Eddie got the mark anyway. That maybe something bizarre would make Eddie older than they thought. Like maybe his crazy mom had pretended to him all their lives that he wasn't as old as he really was.

That's childish fantasy, but he can't help it. The Turtled _owed_ him, damn it!

Eddie will be up by now. Eddie would have seen the mark the second he was, too. Eddie would have responded to him by now. Richie can feel fresh tears welling in his eyes when he eventually has to give up and wash the messy handwriting from his skin. His mom yells up the stairs to him that he's gonna be late and that if he wants to eat birthday pancakes before he goes he better get a move on. He dodges her concern at his appearance while he chokes down his breakfast, and it sucks that he can't even enjoy getting pancakes on a school day because the reason for them makes him feel even more sick.

Honestly, he just wants to chuck himself back in his bed and curl up until either he cried himself to sleep or woke up from this hellish nightmare he had to be living in. He feels shaky when he tosses his backpack over one shoulder. He wants to cry when his mom waves him goodbye, her eyes tinged with something dark and sad. His throat hurts and his nose feels tender and his stomach is trying its hardest to hurl up his pancakes.

He walks to school as slowly as he can, too upset to even pick Eddie up like he usually does. He feels like shit. He wishes the ground would open up a gaping hole and swallow him down into oblivion. He almost wishes, for just a second, that It had gotten him four years ago in the sewers. But really, he just thinks maybe he hates his birthday.

The Losers make him feel better when he finally gets to school. They hug him hard at his locker and want to see his mark, and they're all really supportive and _happy_ for him. He doesn't have the heart to tell them he can't agree. He's glad Eddie had to meet with his English teacher before homeroom, because looking at him was sure to make Richie wanna hurl.

He makes it through the day. He hides from his friends like a coward at lunchtime, but he still can't face Eddie. He knows it's showing on his face, the way he feels. He skips out the second the home bell rings. Maybe tomorrow he'll feel like he can face them properly without bawling his eyes out like a baby. Alone in his room after dinner, he stares at his arm and takes a deep, bracing breath, and he tries again. Maybe he's in a different timezone. Maybe 7am was too early for a conversation. He decides it's a bad idea once he's written it, because he stares and stares and nothing comes through, and it's even harder this time to convince himself there might be a reason. He throws himself petulantly onto his bed to cry at how gross and sludgy he feels inside, and ends up falling asleep.

When he wakes up a few hours later the writing is gone, and Richie is slapped hard in the face with the realisation that there are worse things than saying hello and not getting an answer. His soulmate has scrubbed his message from their skin. They've washed it off, gotten rid of any trace that he had attempted to contact them. Richie didn't think it was possible to be so hurt by someone he's never met, but he knows now just how deeply it can cut.

It's even harder the next day, to hide how he feels. He does finally hang with his friends. He finds himself making more jokes, being more obnoxious, listens to his mouth spew taunts and joking comments that sound flat and mean more often than funny. This blows. He hates this, he feels horrible. he just wants to go home and cry and tell someone, but he doesn't. He resolves to try again. Maybe they were having a bad day, maybe he'd interrupted something. Maybe they got into trouble for the swear word he hadn't thought about.

Richie tries again over the next few days, collecting disappointment like a hoarder. He can't help himself. Every rejection just makes his heart hurt and his hands shake, but he still tries again. All his other attempts go unanswered too, and as the weeks drag into months it gets harder to keep his head up. Especially in Derry.

The ink of that first mark won't wash off his skin no matter how hard he tries, even if his soulmate doesn't want him, and honestly he hates the whole stupid fucking universe right now, and himself. He wishes he'd just drawn a squiggly line or something. Or used one of his favourite quotes from one of his favourite books, or a neat line from a good movie. Something he wouldn't hate looking at as an ill-considered reminder of everything that's wrong with him.

The Losers don't seem to mind his frequently foul moods, like they don't mind anything else about each other that Derry would take issue with, and they keep him sane. His best friend Eddie most of all. Eddie seems almost to have a sixth sense about him, more so even than he always has, and he's almost gentle with Richie on the worst days. Days where it feels like the world has knocked him down and kicked him in the teeth and just keeps on fucking kicking.

Eddie eases the worst of it with small smiles and inside jokes and stupid little things that shouldn't get to Richie like they do. Things like his favourite candy in his locker at lunch, or the way Eddie goes along with more of his jokes instead of brushing them off with scowls and their usual arguing. In the first few days, Bev tells him softly that he has his whole life to find his soulmate, that they still have years to grow up and realise he's the best thing that's gonna happen to them, and he'll have all hell to break loose with them when they do, and it succeeds in making him smile. Even with the steadily growing bleakness in his chest at the constant knowledge that the other half of his soul-bond doesn't want him.

After the first time, he tries not to talk about it. He brushes it off when the others bring it up, and he's nothing if not adept at redirecting conversations with a wink and a joke, or a theatrical impersonation. It's been his defence mechanism since he was old enough to understand humour. He doesn't know whether they realise it and let him, but he's always relieved when it works anyway. In secret, he decides he hates this stranger he was supposed to love. They can rot in hell, for all he cares.

Part of him still can't understand how it could be anyone but Eddie. That part of him refuses to die, a sickly kind of longing that he knows won't ever feel resolved. Because Eddie has a soulmate, and that soulmate isn't him, and he's going to have to find a way to deal with that. And the worst part is knowing that he doesn't _want_ to deal with it. What he _wants_ is for Eddie to be his.

Summer finally arriving makes it a tiny bit easier. With no school, there's no pressure to hide himself, and plenty more places to hide from Bowers like they have every summer since they were eleven. The year passes. It's slow and sometimes doesn't feel real, but it passes. Things are calmer. Life feels almost like it doesn't want him to fail, anymore. He can almost forget sometimes that his soulmate is ignoring his existence.

June brings Ben's birthday, and his shy smiles and cautious eyes as he sits on the floor of the Clubhouse with the others around him, holding the marker up near his skin. He chews his thumb while they talk, listening to their suggestions about what he should write, or what he should draw, and Richie wonders if he's the only one who notices the way those shy blue eyes keep finding Bev. Eventually, after he's drawn blood from his skin while stalling, Mike is pressing a comforting hand on Ben's shoulder.

Ben holds his breath while he traces a small, neat heart right over the pulse point at his wrist. Stan and Bev make gentle hums of encouragement at his choice. Ben's face is very pink, but he looks happy anyway. It's Eddie who holds out the alcohol wipe for him, and they all try not to stare while Ben scrunches up his face in anticipation. Nobody expects it to wipe off, not really. At sixteen, it's unlikely his soulmate hasn't been born yet. If they're the same age, well, it's June. Half the year is gone, so the chances they're already sixteen are pretty good, and in the bloom of youth they're too young to expect his soulmate to have died. Freak accidents happen, of course. And the world is full of unfairness. This is Derry. The Losers Club know life can be cruel and unfair. Richie feels like he knows it more than most, now.

But they don't _expect_ it. Not from something like this, not from a soul-bond. They've fought hard just to survive here. They deserve some good, the Turtle owes them that.

When it does disappear a quiet round of gentle murmurs are passed around the space. Mike is the one who laughs softly to take the sting out of the disappointment on their faces and reminds them all there are other reasons why a soul mark doesn't stay. And he's right. The others breathe sighs of agreement and even Ben doesn't look crestfallen, his smile easy and kind when people start breaking out the snacks they've brought to celebrate his birthday.

Ben tells them the next day that he still hasn't gotten the mark to stick yet, but that's okay. He has time. Richie swears the boy's eyes flicker Beverly's way briefly when Bill says so, and he wonders if anybody else can see what he does. He wonders if anybody else _knows_ what he does, that Ben looks at Bev whenever soulmates come up, that it's not hard to guess Ben hopes it's her. Bill didn't get any his to stick on his birthday either, and he hasn't said anything yet about getting it to since. When he starts wearing a wristband Stan asks, casually in the cafeteria one day, and Bill just shrugs and pushes it up and says it's just for if he _does_ get it suddenly one day. Since you never know what people will put.

Richie is a smartass and points out they might put it somewhere that isn't his wrist, and Bill is calm and half amused when he rolls his eyes and flicks the wrapper of his straw at him. The brief moment of awkwardness passes.

Bill Denbrough is the type who likes to tell them his good news if he has any. He likes how it makes them smile when they share in his best moments with him. He likes to give them something good to think about, even if it's just for a second, and Richie has always understood that. It's the other big driving force behind his own Voices and humour and impeccably timed theatrics. The Losers have practically no secrets anymore, not real ones. And the ones they do have, the dark ones, they're not really secret. They just don't talk about them. Richie slaps Ben on the back and makes a lame joke, one that comes to his tongue without thought and leaves his head after just as fast, but it makes everyone laugh and they fall into discussion about what they should do today, since the sun is climbing higher and the forecast is scorching.

And then before they know it, July has dawned upon them. Summer is racing away from them faster than they can make use of it, and Richie both loves and hates that familiar feeling. The one where the break from school stretches so lazily and promisingly before them that they don't really keep track of the days. It feels like forever. It feels like this is what they'll do until they die.

But the second week of July comes just like it always does, and they all crowd eagerly around Stanley the moment he arrives at the Quarry. He lets them hug him tightly and his face is flushed and happy, and Richie loves him, his oldest friend. He hurries to get ready to jump, the others waiting for him like they promised they would.

They all spy the wristband at the same time, and Stanley's face flushes red and shiny as he bats their hands away. He doesn't want to show them it, he tells them carefully, like he's choosing the right words so that they won't be upset with him. It's disappointing, or at least Richie thinks so, but it's also good news. His soulmate drew him a mark. It appeared right there on his wrist at midnight, before Stanley even had the chance to touch his own marker to his skin. They were awake, too, by some chance, just to warp the norm. He tells them shyly that he thinks they sound pretty cool and Richie's heart swells with affection for him. They all shriek and clamour close, they tell him they don't need to see it but they're _happy_ for him.

Richie doesn't think he's ever seen Stan look this shy, watching the blonde head duck ever lower when Bill bumps their shoulders together while they stand in a line above the drop. He's a little bit jealous, if he's _really_ honest with himself. But he feels bad about that, and most of his feelings are happiness for his friend. Stan deserves some good. The Turtle owes him it. Richie's almost surprised to find himself grinning as they take the leap into the water and play chicken like they almost always do.

When the sun starts to fall towards the horizon again they eat the cupcakes Richie's mom baked, since she's always been so fond of Stan. The seven of them are sitting in a circle on the shore, and it feels pretty damn great to be a Loser right now. Richie wants to draw on Stanley's arm, to see if they'll get a response from the soulmate they now know is out there, but Stan won't let him. Richie doesn't push the issue, not really, simply enjoying teasing Stan until something else comes up.

What are they doing tomorrow?

The days blur into each other in a mash of quarry water and Barren weeds and ice-cream. Richie tries not to let the horrid dark shadow of his radio-silent soulmate hang over his head too much, but fighting it with the hope that by some miracle the marks will start staying on his skin once Eddie hits sixteen is almost as bad. What he's wishing for is a miracle. He knows that, just as surely as he knows it's stupid to hope, but it refuses to die. All he's ever wanted is Eddie, and it's just not fair that he can't ever tell him how much he loves him. He wishes, selfishly, that he'd owned up to his crush years ago. Maybe Eddie would have felt the same, maybe he'd have taken hold of some good luck for himself and together they'd have ignored their soulmates and stuck with each other.

It's a horrible kind of selfishness, to wish someone out there would never meet their soulmate, but Richie can't stop it from lurking in the back of his head like a monster he knows he shouldn't feed.

And then the summer ends and school begins and there's a new day to dread.

When Eddie's birthday rolls around, Richie can't help but ask what he plans to mark his skin with. He knows he shouldn't torture himself, because he wrote _Hello_ on his forearm the second midnight struck, and nothing came back. He drew an ink link up the middle of his index finger in Maths too, just to be sure, but when lunch rolled around there was no matching stain on Eddie's fingers. Richie spent lunchtime in the bathroom trying to wash off the ink on his skin and keep his disappointment from spilling down his face at the same time.

It positively _aches_ in every fibre of his being, but there's nothing he can do except ignore it. Life isn't fair, Tozier. Suck it up.

When he asks, in his bedroom after school while they do homework together, Eddie shrugs and doesn't have an answer. He murmurs something about not having decided what to draw yet, because he wants it to be special, and Richie forces himself to watch the pink bleeding across his friend's freckle-scattered cheeks and not push it. Not pushing it is hard. It burns a little brighter in Richie's stomach every time he asks and every time Eddie gives a variation of that same answer. Even the Losers are noticing he's always bringing it up. Their eyes track him strangely every time, and there are sad expressions on their faces when he looks back. He wonders if they know, if they can see the way he aches so deeply in his soul he thinks he'll die from it. He knows he's going to get caught, that his constant badgering is going to show everyone how much he cares about who Eddie's soulmate is and other people are going to guess _why_ but he can't help himself. It burns.

As the days go on and Eddie still hasn't marked his skin, Richie grows both curious and a little annoyed with him. It takes him some time to realise that's what the itchy feeling is, because he's hardly ever _genuinely_ annoyed by Eddie. Usually it's all play pretend, the only way he has to express how much he likes the shorter boy and their bickering and their bond. But it strikes him like lightning nineteen days after Eddie's birthday that that's what this is. He's annoyed with Eddie. He's _angry_ with him. Doesn't he know there's someone out there waiting for him to say hey?

Doesn't he know how badly it hurts to reach out and have nobody answer?

Now, it's totally Eddie's choice. Bill and Bev and Stan have all repeated this to Richie over the last few weeks, and nobody seems to think it's as shitty a move as Richie does. He's pissed on the soulmate's behalf, and maybe it does have a little to do with his own predicament. But he can't even _say_ that, can he? Because he's just stupidly spent four months answering questions about his soulmate with made up answers, four months boasting about how great they are, making up stupid stories and jokes about what they say and winking and waggling his eyebrows and trailing off his sentences suggestively to make them all laugh. Because he was tired of feeling like he wasn't wanted, and tired of hoping it was Eddie while knowing it couldn't be, and the first time it came out it was an accident but Ben had looked so interested and Bev had looked so happy for him that he hadn't had the heart to take it back.

Eventually, Richie runs out of patience and when they're the first to arrive at the hideout that Thursday after school he accuses Eddie of deliberately being an asshole. He gets so wound up when Eddie gets defensive that he lets it slip his soulmate wants nothing to do with him and his marks won't stay on his skin, so he _knows_ how it feels to think nobody out there wants him. That he's still as alone as he was before. He's too scared to say out loud that he thinks he'll always be alone, but he thinks that much was obvious from the way his voice cracked.

And Eddie, ever full of surprises, stares at him with wide, nervous eyes and tells Richie a secret. In fact, he _shows_ him.

Eddie inks the skin of his palm and then wipes it away easily with an alcohol wipe from the first aid kit, and when Richie looks up at him in confusion he sees that Eddie looks… heartbroken.

Eddie looks how Richie feels. And maybe worse.

Because at least Richie's stupid slow-fading marks being scrubbed off by a stranger's hand are proof he has a soulmate. His soulmate is simply scrubbing him away, but they _exist_.

Eddie doesn't have that assurance yet. And with the year drawing close to the end, it's not looking likely they'll be the same age. Either Eddie's soulmate is going to be younger than him, which is probably what'll happen, or something is wrong. And with Eddie, the possibility of something being wrong is something that will eat him up every day until it's resolved. Richie sees the root of all the worry, and he knows what to do. He makes a joke about Eddie having a hot young girlfriend when he's older, and Eddie punches him solidly in the chest. But his irritated huff turns into a chuckle pretty quick, and Richie feels better than he has in a long time. Sure, his soulmate doesn't want him, but he can still make Eddie Kaspbrak laugh, and that's good enough.

He tells Eddie he shouldn't have worried about it so much, and demands dramatically to know why Eddie didn't just _tell_ him, and Eddie flushes pink and rolls his eyes and says he doesn't know, but Richie understands. It's who Eddie is. He worries, and even while he worries, he doesn't like putting his problems on other people's plates. Richie thinks he's ridiculous. But his heart pulses real hard with affection for the younger boy just the same. They coil together in the hammock while they wait for the others, both facing the same way for a rare change, Eddie tucked right under Richie's arm and his head pillowed on Richie's shoulder while they read old comics and shit talk each other.

The warmth of his best friend snuggled right up beside him is a lot for Richie's heart to take, but he refuses to feel guilty about it. He's felt particularly touch-starved lately, and his soulmate ignoring him hasn't helped with his amassing feelings of rejection. Eddie's easy friendship is soothing, and Richie lets himself sink into the embrace, committing the sensations to memory.

This is what happiness is, and he knows it. Fuck what the universe says. Eddie makes him happy.

And so they move on.

Richie's mark doesn't fade and his notes and doodles go unanswered and he decides that if life wants to shit on him, then he can handle it. As long as he has his friends, he can survive anything.

And so life _does_ go on.

Bev is the last among them to celebrate her sixteenth birthday, being a whole thirteen months younger than Bill who is their oldest, and it's rather spectacular, if Richie says so himself. February thirteenth is a Sunday, so she doesn't have to have her birthday at school. The Clubhouse is strung with white paper flowers, and all their snacks are already laid out waiting. She's the last to arrive, the six of them waiting impatiently because she's late. And then she's there, barrelling down the ladder with flashing eyes and a determined kind of look on her face, and before they've even finished yelling Happy Birthday she's locked her eyes on Ben.

His face is scarlet, Richie realises, his eyes wide and hopeful and so very blue, and for a second the pair seem to stare at each other, before Beverly says something terribly softly that sounds an awful lot like _January embers_. It's while Richie's is trying to place where he's heard the phrase before that Bev launches herself at Ben and hugs him hard, and the they're looking at their wrists and everything is explained.

On Bev's wrist, and right there on Ben's too, is a tiny doodle of a flame. Bev skims her thumb over Ben's in earnest, her expression very soft and vulnerable and… _happy_. Richie feels his heart hurt with love for them both. Later, having spent the afternoon wrapped comfortably in Ben's arms, Bev leans up to lay a tiny peck on his lips and the seven of them watch the matching little flames flare gold and bright before fading away.

Nobody says anything for a long moment of reverent silence, and Richie knows by the mood of the room that he's not the only one feeling awe at getting to witness something so incredible. The universe is finally making good, it feels like. Ben and Bev were owed this happiness by that damn Turtle, and they're all grateful to just be part of their moment.

It's on Bill's eighteenth, only months before Graduation, that they find out who his soulmate is. Maybe Richie should have seen it coming, maybe if he hadn't been expending so much energy on just trying to head his head up, he'd have put two and two together. He'd sensed, years ago, that there was something there. But he was so afraid at the time, so scared of what was lurking inside of him, and they were being chased by a monster from outer space. It hadn't felt important enough to risk saying. And after, well, he'd put it down to their Losers Club bond. They'd all been closer than normal people were.

Stanley's mark had been a bird, he finally admits, turning a pale rose colour and ducking his head to rub the lobe of his ear between his thumb and index finger like he used to all those years ago.

Bill and Stan assure them it doesn't change any plans. They're all still moving. They're all still leaving. Nothing can change that. Eddie's scholarship is in the works. Richie's been saving all his wages from bussing tables at the diner two summers running, and his parents are gonna help him with anything else he might need. Mike's got an outside scholarship as a home-schooled kid, arranged through a convoluted program set up by a sport's organisation that Richie can't rightly understand but is pleased exists. Bev's already put everything in place for her winter Graduation. She won't be far behind them when they all leave at the start of fall. She's not even telling her dad.

He'll wake up the day after her Graduation ceremony and she won't be there. Eddie and Richie are taking most of her stuff with them in September. Their place is only a three-bed, but Stan's going to live with Ben and Bill in the two-bed place Bill's parents are helping him pay for anyway so Bev can have his room until she finds her feet. His University loans are ear-marked and automatically deducted for the rent anyway, it's not like he can use it for anything else.

They leave no Loser behind.

And September, when it comes, September is good. Eddie's early birthdate arrives a mere week before the beginning of their new term. They went ahead with his enrolment the second his scholarship was awarded, working cloak-and-dagger in the shadows with the University Administration and saying nothing to Sonia. By the time she knows, it'll be too late. Eddie will be eighteen and free of her, and Richie will already have a lot of his stuff packed in the car.

Eddie has been smuggling stuff out over the last month or so. Piece by piece, his life has left that little room his mom refuses to graduate from a childhood bedroom. Richie owns very little that he wants to take, and his parents will hang on to anything he might want to come back for. Maybe he'll even just send them money to have it shipped.

Who knows? Richie certainly doesn't, but nor does he care as the third day of September arrives and he leans on the hood of his truck and watches the boy he loves push past a hollering Sonia Kaspbrak with nothing but a brief glance in her direction. Richie listens to her wail and scream and threaten, but he only watches while Eddie stays strong, and Richie is proud of him. He's so proud of him that for a while it eclipses that old ache in his chest that he's grown so used to.

Eddie still hasn't had a peep from his soulmate. The ink still won't stay on his skin no matter how often he tries. But he tells Richie life goes on. It's become kind of like a mantra between them, and Richie's even beginning to believe it.

When they finally get there, their new place is small and Eddie says it needs to be deep cleaned right fucking now, but it's _theirs_. In three months, Bev will join her belongings in that empty third bedroom, and with Mike only halfway across the state they'll manage to keep themselves together. They can do this. This is what life looks like when it goes on.

Their courses start up. They have class schedules and part-time jobs and textbooks to buy and a library to study in and it's like getting a taste of a life they didn't know could exist. Richie _loves_ University. The students are nothing like the people back home. There are couples of all descriptions everywhere, and there's an LGBT society, and the tutors answer questions as if it makes sense he wouldn't understand, instead of shouting down anybody who spoke and ploughing through lessons nobody wanted to be in.

There's a freaking indie theatre _on campus_. Richie works there. He bar-tends for evening screenings, he works earlier and makes coffee, he sweeps popcorn from sticky floors and tears tickets at the door and entertains bored little kids in line and it's kind of _just_ his scene. Eddie's studying Medicine and works in the pharmacy, and although he doesn't appreciate being called _The Next Mr. Keene_ , it does make him laugh.

Richie feels like Eddie blooms under the sunshine of opportunity presented to him, and he thinks that maybe he's blooming with him, two plants side by side in a garden that's never quite been watered enough before now. He finally gets to live as who he is, and it's freeing. He and Eddie fit together like spaghetti and sauce, and their apartment becomes the headquarters of the Losers Club more often than not. They're all finally touching a little happiness, and it's even beginning to make all that misery in Derry feel worth it.

When Bev arrives not long before Christmas, ready for her delayed-start in January, Richie feels like maybe they're complete again. Mike swings by on alternate weekends, since his part-time job tutoring is mostly during the week, and when the seven of them are crammed into the tiny living room at Richie, Bev and Eddie's, life feels like it could go on forever and be worth it. It feels a little bit like they're cashing in happiness they've had coming for a long time.

They throw themselves gleefully into University life and both Richie and Eddie can forget, sometimes for weeks on end, that they haven't found their soulmates. Richie stopped writing messages for his over a year ago. Now he writes himself notes that disappear by themselves, and maybe he takes a tiny bit of pleasure in knowing the asshole who's ignoring him has to scrub all his nonsense off.

When they have bad days Bev is there to mother them and it turns out Ben makes the best kinds of comfort food in the tiny, immaculate kitchen, and Eddie tells him that life just isn't fair, but it's the only life he gets and so life must go on, right?

Well okay then, Richie thinks. Life goes on.

Or it did, because today it feels like it might end right here and now while he waits anxiously in the uncomfortable plastic chair they forced him into, watching doctors and nurses scurry around, each one ignoring his pleas for answers. Eddie was in a crash, a nasty one. Eddie never so much as runs a red light and now here they are at the hospital with him in surgery after his car was practically totalled. Richie feels like the world is genuinely ending while he waits for news, and for the first time in the five years since they flipped Derry the bird and moved out the second Eddie turned eighteen, Richie is faced with the formidable and awful Mrs Kaspbrak.

Five years they've managed to avoid leaving any clue for the woman to find them, and here by some tragic joke, she is anyway. She is adamant that he not be included, banned from Eddie's room even once he's moved to ICU and stabilised after the surgery ends, ignoring the fact that Richie's one of Eddie's emergency contacts too. His main one, or he's supposed to be. Eddie took his mom off his records five years ago at the University clinic, and Richie thinks it's just fucking typical that something like that wouldn't go through.

Sonia blames him, of course. She screams as much at him in the corridor when he tries to argue. He made Eddie into a bad son, she says. He twisted him, influenced him. Manipulated him, she has the audacity to accuse _him_ , manipulated Eddie into leaving his whole life behind. She spits at him when he tries to argue that Eddie didn't _have_ a life to leave behind. That she saw to _that_ , and now Eddie is going to be a Doctor and Richie isn't going to stand by and watch her warping her son into her personal servant. Sonia's voice gets very low and dangerous when she tells him his days of getting his filthy germs all over Eddie are over, and Richie doesn't need it spelled out for him what she's calling him.

He hears an echo of Henry Bowers screaming at him as he's hunted like an injured animal through the Barrens, and it makes his already churning stomach flip over. He can't stop his mouth. Not now. Not even when it opens and tells her that Eddie being gay has nothing to do with him. That Eddie's always been gay, he's just brave enough to say it now. That he's _happy_ now that he can be who he's always been. Richie's forcibly removed from the room when she hurls herself at him in an attempt to blacken his eye.

So he sits in the waiting room, his knee bouncing hard and fast with too much pent-up energy, and he wallows in worry. The nurses stop asking if maybe he should leave, after the first few hours he spends in the chair waiting for news or for Bev to come and hold his hand when she has an hour free, only moving to go to the canteen, where he dozes for an hour at the table. And then he's back in the chair in the family waiting area and stays there through the night, only leaving later to use the bathroom. His mind exists in a constant state of near-panic and deep worry. Every passing minute makes him feel sicker.

They won't tell him anything, even when they shoot him apologetic glances. He must look half-crazed. He _feels_ half-crazed. He feels like his heart is going to crawl right out of him and throw itself to the ground just to be released from the aching. His whole soul hurts. He knows that's not how souls work, but he doesn't know what else to call it. Every cell of his body is aching and hurting and he doesn't know how he's going to survive this if Eddie doesn't pull through.

It's like that for what feels like a lifetime wrapped into three days where Bev brings him a change of clothes and spends her lunch breaks with him and Bill sits in comforting silence beside him and distracts him with muted ideas about the book he wants to write. It feels like eternity before a doctor finally approaches him and asks if he's Richard Tozier, as though he hasn't been saying he is for three days and change, because Eddie's woken up and Richie's the first thing he asked for.

Eddie makes them make his mother leave when she kicks up a fuss. He makes them scrub her from his emergency information for good this time too. The nurses let Richie stay after that little display. Richie pretends it doesn't affect him to his very core, but it _does_. He's not a partner or a sibling or a soulmate, but he knows first hand how difficult it is to say no to Eddie. And it's reassuringly _Eddie_ of him to make it crystal clear that Richie is wanted.

While Eddie begins recovering, Richie scribbles in the puzzle book Stan brought, to keep himself busy. He steals half of the chocolate that Ben brings, just to make Eddie squawk and forget about where he is. He bickers with Bev over books and cereal bars to make Eddie roll his eyes and just eat them, and he entertains Mike with crappy new material for his new radio slot because Eddie's heard it all already but won't admit he secretly likes watching other people hear it for the first time. Richie has always felt like Eddie's pride in him is the best kind, and it's even more potent now in their new lives when Eddie could go anywhere and be proud of _anything_ , and he still wants to stick around Richie like the glue that holds him together.

He works on more new material too, for the slot they both hope he still has after living at the hospital all week. Eddie tells him several times that he should leave to do his shows so they don't forget why they hired him, but Richie sees how little Eddie actually wants him to leave and Lord help him, he doesn't want to leave either.

His big break may just have to wait.

The hospital lets him sleep on one of the foldaway visitor beds they have for moms of little kids, and soulmates of dying people. After the nurses do the last check in at night, Richie crawls into Eddie's bed instead. The comfort makes them both feel better. He knows that, even if neither of them actually says it. Eddie's bruises darken and set in his skin over the days they're there, but Richie traces light fingertips along Eddie's arm to help him sleep, and Eddie says it doesn't hurt.

One morning he's doodling again, on the unmarred patches of a sleeping Eddie's arm after Stan's latest scolding about the puzzles, when the new nurse quirks her eyebrow and asks why he doesn't doodle on his own, since then they'd match.

She looks apologetic when he explains they're not soulmates, but Richie doesn't hold it against her. He shows her his mark as a peace offering, tells the familiar joke - old, by now, - about how he must have scared away his soulmate as a kid because they've never gotten back to him, and Eddie adds that if he really has one they probably don't mind him doodling since they've never existed anyway.

She gets real thoughtful but closes her mouth before she says anything, and disappears with a polite smile. He's worried that maybe they were too flippant, but he didn't exactly want to say Eddie's soulmate must have _died_ , since that felt infinitely worse than them not existing in the first place. Eddie doesn't seem too bothered by it. It's not the first time they've had to correct people, a common mistake that makes Richie's heart race every time, seeing as how it's all his heart has ever wanted. People always just assume they're a pair. It's kind of brilliant, and devastating at the same time. Richie thinks they _should_ have been a pair. He wished for it so hard that it feels like it was only right it _should_ have come true.

But wishes don't change the course of fate, and life has to go on the way it's going to.

Richie doesn't question it when they want to talk to Eddie in private an hour later. He knows they'll let him back in when they're done, now. He grabs them candy and chips from the vending machine to waste time. He swings by the canteen to get jello. When he eyes the little cotton ball taped at Eddie's elbow when they let him back in, his friend just rolls his eyes and tells him they wanted more blood to test. He looks nervous, but Richie knows intimately how anxious Eddie can get about his health, so he distracts him with Doritos and more doodles and grins through Eddie's half-hearted complaints about the mess of colours that used to be his arm.

The next time the doctors come in he stands to leave, but Eddie catches his hand and gives him a startlingly panicked look, so he sits back down. Their fingers squeeze together just a little bit too tight, but it's okay. He matches Eddie's pressure and it's a silent message of _I'm here, and I'm not leaving_. Eddie's fingers are trembling when the doctor starts to speak.

The doctor tells Eddie that the nurse's initial suspicion was correct, and Eddie seems to sag. Richie waits for an explanation, listening to the man talk about therapy and outreach programs, but he doesn't understand any of it besides that it's news Eddie doesn't know how to feel about. He can see that on his friend's face clear as day, and once they're alone again he waits. Because he knows Eddie inside out, - and he should after all their years as friends, - and that means he knows the guy needs time to process.

When Eddie finally does speak, it's a word Richie can't remember ever hearing before, but it sounds suitably medical, even as his mind jumps to start taking it apart and looking at the pieces.

Dermodysthesia.

Eddie explains it to him in careful, slow tones.

It's rare. Like, ridiculously rare, ten times rarer than _Sonia-Kaspbrak-would-convince-you-you-had-it_ rare and then some, - and oh the irony in _that_ \- and it's a skin condition that interferes with soulmate bonds. The only reason they even tested for it was because the nurse who wasn't even meant to be working Eddie's ward today did her Dissertation on it at University last year, so the condition and all it's symptoms are still fresh in her mind. Fresh enough that she didn't just assume his soulmate was dead, like everyone else always does.

What it means, Eddie tells him with a torn and unsettled expression, is that for the two years since Eddie turned twenty one and started to really believe he doesn't have a soulmate, or that his soulmate was already dead before they both hit sixteen, they actually _could_ be - and probably _are_ \- out there and just can't communicate with him because his skin won't let his marks transfer. Or let theirs come back to him.

It's like a horrible punch to the gut. His best friend most likely has a soulmate out there, he just might have to - _Won't ever find them, Rich_ \- spend his life kissing any guy he might be even remotely compatible with _._

It's too horrible to comprehend.

So Richie does what he always does, and he makes it into a joke they can both try to push aside. Looks like Eddie bagged himself a rare health condition just like his mom always hoped, huh? Besides, Richie's soulmate doesn't want him, remember? So what. They'll go back to their lives when he's recovered from the crash, and life will go on just like Eddie is always saying. Richie doesn't care that Eddie's got some dumb skin condition and hasn't found his soulmate, he's never cared about any of it. Their lives have still be pretty great since they moved, he tells him. If anything, he's loved having Eddie around to bond so much the way they have, something that they might not have had if either of them had found their soulmates.

So maybe it's dangerously true and frighteningly honest, but he's said it now and when Eddie admits to him that he's the only reason he's made it this far with his blank skin, Richie pulls him into a firm hug and promises he'll always stick around.

Eddie's eyes are liquid and honey-brown when he turns them Richie's way. He's hesitant, even when he lets Richie tug him close, and Richie can see the question in Eddie's eyes - _Even if they grow up one day and get back to you?_ \- before he voices it. He curls his arms even tighter and presses his forehead into Eddie's temple in the way that always seems to soothe him, and whispers the promise - _Even then. They're only staying away because they know I love you more than them anyway._ \- to him right there in the hospital bed.

They're still living in that first place, an apartment more than just a little too small for them but that feels too much like home to leave just yet. Bev took over Stan's part of the lease ages ago. Between the seven of them they're graduating or just graduated, and life is not too shabby for a bunch of kids from Derry, Maine. Richie knows they can do this. They've _been_ doing this, remember? Eddie has a word for it now, which both helps and doesn't, but at least it's something.

It's a further six months before Eddie kisses Richie, after a really crappy day and an hour-long argument that sprouts from nowhere about why they're not together by now when neither of them have the ability to contact the only two universe-assigned people who might miss them.

Richie clings to Eddie for support when the shorter man rushes him suddenly, and he feels like maybe his brain has short-circuited as their lips crash together, and an embarrassing sound escapes his throat that makes Eddie's mouth laugh against his. Eddie is warm and familiar against him and tastes like coffee and Richie can't remember ever being happier. It's soft and heartfelt and gentle and it's everything he's always secretly hoped for, and really the only thing that ruins it is the burning pain in his wrist from the mark he scribbled there nearly eight years ago.

As they stare at it, the deep black of the marker pen flares blinding gold before it finally starts drying up and fading, like it's been sat in the sun for years.

Fucking.

Typical.

He wants to curse the Turtle, just a little. But when he rolls his eyes skyward with Eddie half-laughing half-sobbing in his arms at their revelation, he can't find that old ache. It's gone. In place, he's just grateful. He doesn't curse the Turtle after all, he thanks it.

Beverly cries when they tell her the second the front door opens, but she blames it on hormones because she _just_ found out she's pregnant this morning. Ben cries too, but Ben doesn't give them an excuse. He says it plain like he's _always_ been brave enough to, that he's just incredibly happy for them. Bev says he could blame the project he just got asked to help out on, the homeless shelters who were looking for someone to help with building ideas, but Ben laughs her off and shakes his head with a soft smile.

Richie jokes that hey, since Eddie'll be sharing with him now that means they have a spare room for her kid, and it isn't until Eddie coils his arm around his waist and nestles against his chest that Richie realises it doesn't have to be a joke. Bev looks like maybe she'll cry again. Ben says he's going to start dinner. Maybe she'll feel better a little better once she's put her feet up and had something to eat. Richie watches the way Bev's eyes soften further and follow Ben as he steps into the kitchen, and he can't help but squeeze Eddie tight.

Maybe they can finally start having some of this lovestruck happiness for themselves.

Bill says he must have known, because he pitched an idea _yesterday_ to an agent who wants him to write a story about two best friends who take years to realise they belong together, and when everybody says it sounds too sappy to be his idea, he shrugs and says it came to him in a dream and besides - they kill a monster together as kids in the story too, so it counts as horror.

Mike just landed his dream job in the library right here in the heart of their city after graduating top in his class, so he'll be moving to their part of the state permanently in just two weeks, and while they're all yelling down the phone at him about how fucking _exciting_ that is, they're starting to sense a theme. Ben practically lives in Bev's room in the bigger apartment, which isn't even that much bigger and is about to get seriously cramped for a while, so Mike has a place to stay already set up and waiting.

No Loser left behind they insist, when he tries to argue that he doesn't want to impose.

Stanley appears to dinner late. He hugs Eddie firmly and kisses his temple and tells him very seriously that he's relieved, even if he's sorry Eddie now has to spend his life with Richie. His smirk is old and worn and familiar and Richie asks what _his_ news is, since by some miracle they've all gotten some in the last day.

Stanley blushes. Stanley Uris, master of the poker face, _blushes_. He had an interview at an Accountancy firm today. A very damn _elite_ Accountancy firm that he thought he probably had no real chance of even landing a reception job at, considering he's still finishing up his Master's. They called him back less than an hour after he left. It seems that when the man in charge was reading over Stan's file, his daughter Patricia was bringing him lunch and mentioned that she studied with a Stanley Uris, and that he was the best she'd ever seen.

Stan's taking her to dinner tomorrow as a thank you, and she's pretty fond of her. He doesn't say that, he says she's lovely and leaves it at that, but the others know how to speak Stanley, after all these years. They're finally living proper lives now, making friends outside their Loser family. Bev wants to meet this human being that Stanley deems worth spending time with. Richie cracks a joke about birds, and has to grab the stack of plates Eddie's putting out for dinner like a shield to stop Stanley from throwing his shoe at him.

The radio station, through perhaps this same strange miracle, had kept Richie's slot for him those months ago. He's gathered himself a real following, too. He tells stories about their childhood - edited of course, no space monsters! - and about their lives and generally he just gets paid to be himself and talk to invisible people and that's pretty neat. The station even received word of the first request to offer him a new position at a bigger station just this morning, but he turned it down. They gave him his chance when things were tough and they were understanding while Eddie was recovering. He owes them, and he likes it there.

Eddie groans when Richie says the next time he's on the air he's gonna tell the world - _The world doesn't listen to that station, Richie_ \- the _whole_ world, their story. How it took Eddie, the best driver any of them know, to get in a car wreck for them to find happiness. How there's this thing called Dermodysthesia that he didn't even know existed, how after all these years two kids from Derry, Maine have finally fallen together by accident and how he can finally look at his wrist again and not see that ridiculous fucking foghorn he drew when he was sixteen and childishly hopeful it was going to vanish when he tried to clean it off.

And that, he tells Eddie firmly, is definitely the next story he's going to to tell. Because he deserves this, this overwhelming happiness, this ocean of love that he's finally allowed to let himself feel for the one person he's wanted to be with since he was twelve years old, and he's going to spend the rest of his life enjoying every second of it, because it's _owed_ him, damn it.

~.~


End file.
